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Girl on the Train, The
Stars: Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Edgar Ramirez, Allison Janney, Lisa Kudrow, Laura Prepon
Director: Tate Taylor
Top-drawer acting, a thin, timeline-jumping plot and some dodgy dialogue are the main ingredients in this film version of Paula Hawkins' worldwide best-seller.
Rachel (Blunt), an alcoholic in her early thirties, still obsessed with her ex, Tom (Theroux), travels to New York each day, fantasising about the people she sees from the train and the lives they might lead. She spots a couple, Megan (Bennett) and Scott (Evans), whom she comes to regard as the ideal - until the morning she sees Megan in an embrace with another man on the veranda of her house.
Revelations come so thick and fast at the end of the story that it's difficult to keep up, but, whereas the book dragged for me after the first 150 pages or so, director Taylor does keep the film version, which sticks fairly closely to the book, going pretty well throughout.
Given the melodramatic nature of the narrative, there are excellent performances from Blunt, Bennett and Ferguson, the first two especially, with solid gold supporting portrayals by Janney and by Kudrow as the society wife of Tom's ex-boss.
David Quinlan
USA 2016. UK Distributor: entertainmentOne (Dreamworks). Technicolor.
107 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 2, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 3.
Review date: 09 Feb 2017